Modern Times: Reflections on Andre Gorz’ Letter to D

When I got married, a dear friend gave me a most special gift: Letter to D, a novel but also a beacon; a reminder that there exists a possibility that cannot be realised through work, through politics or through sport. It is a possibility that is open to strong and weak, rich and poor; it is available to man and woman, man and man.

“I don’t stand a chance with her,” thought André Gorz when he met Dorine in October 1947. She was warned off Gorz – born Gerhardt Horz – by another man who described him as an “Austrian Jew. Totally devoid of interest”. Yet he did stand a chance and her interest he held throughout six decades.

Letter to D, published in 2006, is an open love letter. It was much talked about in Paris, the air of which their relationship breathed. Gorz, one of the more influential philosophers of the 20th century, opened his letter: “You’re 82 years old. You’ve shrunk six centimetres, you weigh only 45 kilos yet you’re still beautiful, graceful and desirable.”

Who, dear reader, does not want to feel the same devotion; who doesn’t want to bask in the same warmth? When he wrote these words, Dorine was in terminal decline, her body riddled with disease. The possibility open to all beings had been grasped and held with a conviction that squeezed tragedy from inevitability. Decline and end eludes no one.

But many, distracted by inexorable climbing, ignore the original possibility. The marriage of A to D was framed in a deeply intellectual context. She an actress and he a writer, both activists committed to socialism, but their relationship was founded on something other than reason. They were described by friends as “obsessionally concerned for one another”. Obsession expands reason, until reason is ultimately rendered irrelevant to the relationship.

My wife’s grandparents, Fred and Winnifred, were both swimming coaches. They still sit together every day on their porch, which overlooks the Swan River in which they once trained their swimmers. They built that house together from the foundation up, mixing the concrete to make each brick until it was finished in 1953. F and W then built Perth’s first 25-metre pool in their backyard, so that they could conduct their training sessions in conditions more suited to elite training. More than 60 years later, they too remain “obsessionally concerned for one another”; a concern untouched by old age and dementia.

Modern obsessions are seldom inspired by a concern for another. Motivated individuals today obsess over careers or bank balances. Others obsess about their favourite sporting team, whichever banality appears on their iPhones, or reality television which never fails to produce the spontaneity of two mirrors set against one another, reflecting into infinity.

Does modern life allow a person the freedom to enjoy an obsessive concern for another; a freedom, perhaps, from insecurity, from ego or from self-consciousness? Is such freedom a thing to which a person aspires today? These freedoms may appear antiquated, but Gorz showed that the pressure to be busy and temptation to be distracted is not unique to our generation, nor even to our century.

Gorz reflected that he had the impression of “not having lived my life, of always having observed it at a distance”. He wrote to D: “You were at one with your life; whereas I’d always been in a hurry to move on to the next task, as though life would only really begin later.” This recalls to me my two greatest fears. One, that I will sit next to S, my wife, when I am 80 and regret not having done enough with my life. The second that I will sit on the same porch and regret that I had tried to do too much, as though life would only really begin later.

For Gorz, it was a habit that he struggled to break but terminal illness is a disease that can focus the mind and, in their final years, they together decided to focus on the now. Earlier in Letter to D, Gorz had used a line by John Ruskin, that there was “no wealth but life”. The year after it was published, André and Dorine were found lying side-by-side in their home in Aube, north-eastern France, having taken their lives together. “Neither of us want to outlive the other”, he had written barely a year earlier. Their end was the product of a deep and unwavering commitment.

Gorz ended his Letter to D: “We’ve often said to ourselves that if, by some miracle, we were to have a second life, we’d like to spend it together.” Their story remains a beautiful gift to those of us who remain, scurrying around distracted, as though life will only begin later.

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Artist: Christopher Orchard.
Drawing and the human form are Orchard’s twin passions. In the year 2000 a bald, portly, middle aged man, described by Orchard as an avatar, started to appear

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Artist: Christopher Orchard.

Drawing and the human form are Orchard’s twin passions. In the year 2000 a bald, portly, middle aged man, described by Orchard as an avatar, started to appear in his work. This display includes several works featuring this avatar who represents ‘the entire history of what it means to be human’.

Orchard is the feature artist for this year’s South Australian Living Artist’s Festival and the subject of a major publication by Wakefield Press.

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Each year, we invite a different artist to curate our flagship weekend event, UKARIA 24. We give them the freedom to invite an eclectic array of friends into a dialogue

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Each year, we invite a different artist to curate our flagship weekend event, UKARIA 24. We give them the freedom to invite an eclectic array of friends into a dialogue across four concerts that offers an intrinsic distillation of their artistic vision.

We are delighted to welcome Scottish classical accordion virtuoso James Crabb to curate UKARIA 24 in 2017. James is an artist who consistently captivates – someone who is recognised as an international ambassador of his instrument. The music of Astor Piazzolla and Osvaldo Golijov will frame a disparate journey from the Baroque sonatas of Scarlatti to a contemporary tour de force by Sofia Gubaidulina in a weekend celebrating the Argentinean Tango Nuevo.

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(Thursday) 11:45 AM - 2:00 PM

Location

Intercontinental Adelaide

North Terrace, Adelaide SA 5000

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Adelaide is set to build on its reputation as Australia's hub of innovation and technology excellence in the defence industry. With announcements including the Federal Government’s recent acquisition and infrastructure

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Adelaide is set to build on its reputation as Australia’s hub of innovation and technology excellence in the defence industry. With announcements including the Federal Government’s recent acquisition and infrastructure investment of South Australia’s Techport; Boeing Australia to create 250 defence technology jobs in South Australia; and Lockheed Martin set to grow its Submarine Combat System laboratory, the time is now for us to find out:

– What are the job opportunities?
– How will we develop the talent pool?
– What are the true positive impacts on the South Australian economy and beyond?

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The forever romance,the hundred year classic ,the most heart-warming dancing you will see this year.
The Russian National Ballet Theatre is coming back. They will bring the world's greatest classic ballet

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The forever romance,the hundred year classic ,the most heart-warming dancing you will see this year.
The Russian National Ballet Theatre is coming back. They will bring the world’s greatest classic ballet Romeo and Juliet this time.
The seamless choreographed by Evgeny Amosov based on the Prokofiev ballet in three Acts and classical music.The Russian National Ballet Theatre will bring audience into a antiquity tradition of tragic romances story.

“For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo” – From William Shakespeare.